Proposal 3: What you should know about the renewable energy standard initiative

Over the last year, as Crain's energy and environmental reporter, I have interviewed and sat in editorial board meetings with many people representing environmental, business and utility companies.

I also have read all the reports, received all the press releases, heard and seen all the radio and TV ads – over and over until near exhaustion, as have many of you.

What can I tell my blog readers about this experience?

First, as I have told many people, I am glad I am not a political reporter.

It seems as if Ballot Proposal 3, which would extend the 10 percent renewable energy mandate that expires in 2015 another 10 years to 25 percent, has turned into bad political theater.

This is not to say the other five ballot proposals haven't become warnings that the end of the world is upon us and that the campaigns have sometimes deviated from facts, because they have.

Second, the claims that the utility companies have made that voting "yes" for the proposal will cost ratepayers (meaning anybody who turns on a light in their home) some $12 billion is far from the complete story.

I score this statement as a partial truth. What they don't tell you is that DTE Energy and Consumers Energy will spend billions of dollars anyway to maintain their existing generating and transmission system from 2015 to 2025.

I asked them this question two months ago and never got an answer.

Rates will go up over the next 10 years even if this initiative fails.

The proposal caps at 1 percent the costs the utility companies can pass along to ratepayers to fund additional wind farms and solar power plants, along with other renewable energy sources.

I assume this means the utility companies will eat those costs above the 1 percent cap, which most likely could be paid for out of their bottom lines.

However, the proposal has a built-in safeguard to protect utility company profits.

If it appears that utilities might have to exceed that 1 percent cap, the Michigan Public Service Commission could grant annual extensions to comply with the 2025 deadline to reach 25 percent.

FYI, DTE received MPSC approval for 13.5 percent rate increase this year. DTE says it could increase rates another 30 percent by 2015. Consumers Energy also has proposed to raise rates 20 percent by 2015.

Before I go to my next point, I would like to provide a link here to show that DTE – and so does Consumers – really supports generating electricity through wind power.

DTE is not opposed to wind or solar generation. They just don't like being forced to do it as would Proposal 3 do. (DTE's wind energy web page).

Three, the job creation claims that the renewable energy folks like to tout - 74,000 "job years" created, is by my estimation a major stretch of the imagination.

If there are 150,000 to 200,000 jobs nationally from wind and solar, as the various industry groups contend, I predict maybe 10,000 jobs created in Michigan if this proposal is approved by voters.

Four, the renewable energy folks say Michigan's Proposal 3 is similar to what other states have done.

I grade this partially true as well. No other states have implemented energy policy into their constitution through a ballot initiative. There are three states – Colorado, Washington and Missouri – that have approved ballot initiatives to change their energy policy.

But those initiatives created state statutes, not constitutional amendments.

Some people have a problem with changing the constitution to change energy policy. They believe only elected politicians should be able to change state constitutions when it comes to "policy" issues, whatever that term encompasses.

Others think the long-term goal of weaning the utility companies in Michigan off coal is a worthy goal. They say other states that have done this have experienced rate reductions or a slower pace of increases.

I am not sure exactly what conventional is, but I believe they mean coal, gas and nuclear.

My research shows this is a complicated issue that both sides can claim to hold the higher ground on.

Five, here is a fact that no one can dispute. There are vast health benefits to humans that can come by moving from a state where 60 percent of the power is generated from coal to a state that produces energy from 41 percent coal.

Calculate this: Fewer asthma-related illnesses and deaths, fewer heart attacks and strokes from less arsenic, mercury and particulates in the atmosphere and water by moving away from coal.

Aside from lessening human suffering and death, the money saved in reduced health care costs by cleaner air and water by moving away from coal in Michigan can be substantial.

I hope everyone who votes has researched all the issues and votes based on facts and what they think is best for their children and their children's children.

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